The adventure of learning to fully live while healing from Complex PTSD

Needing relationships

Relationship, connection, and needing other people have been on going themes for me that have cropped up several times over the last few months. Actually, they are themes that have been a focus of a lot of my therapy work since I started to work with Mama Bear again. This time around, I have become very aware of the walls that I put up between myself and others, in particular the walls that I put up with Mama Bear in the therapy room.

I can understand how those walls were necessary for me as a child. I used them to help buffer myself from painful relationships and to try to control how much I “needed” other people. They were a part of my attempt to be the child that I thought would be most acceptable to my parents- pleasant, non demanding, and able to take care of myself. However, as is the case with so many coping mechanisms for an abused and neglected child, over the years they became rigidly relied upon until I wasn’t able to make a choice of whether I wanted to let someone in or not. Everyone was kept out.

I always knew that I wanted love and connection, though. Fortunately, that led me to choose a husband who was loving and respectful, even though when I made that choice I had no understanding that I was dealing with demons inside, much less what the demons were. Something in me said, “I need love. I deserve love. I will not accept anything less than real love and I experience it with this man.” My mom failed me in many, many ways, but she also loved me. She really loved me. I think that having that experience of being loved gave me something to hold onto at my core, despite all of the abuse from my father and grandfather and her failing to protect me. So much happened that made love feel dangerous and unreliable, but I still had that experience of what being loved was like and so I have always yearned for it, even while I have been to frightened to open myself to it.

What a confusing situation for a child… I remember that one of my mom’s favorite phrases was, “All that really matters is love.” Yes, love is so central to my well being, but is it all that really matters? No! Or at least the emotion of love just isn’t enough by itself. I needed for her to be able to find enough strength to move past her own fears and limitations and find a way to protect me, not just love me! Love involves action, not just feelings. Those warm and fuzzy feelings may have felt great for her and, to be fair, it’s likely that her aiming them at me may be what gave me the resilience to keep on going, but I needed for her to deal with the rot in our family, as well as giving me kisses and hugs.

So I have been experiencing this push/pull all my life: a profound mistrust of others and the expectation that they will fail me when I most need them and yet also a deep yearning for love and intimacy. Over the last 25 years, I have slowly, bit by bit made progress by at first allowing myself to even start to see how much I mistrusted other people and then slowly testing and building on experience after experience of people being trustworthy in normal, everyday situations. Then I learned to trust myself to have the strength to deal with those times when others would let me down, not out of malice, but because they were human. And now I am at a point where I feel enough safety with Mama Bear that I can begin to fully reveal the traumatized parts and allow them to connect with her.

It’s a process that is scary and at the same time such a relief. It certainly isn’t something that comes naturally at this point! Many times when I am talking about something difficult, I find myself starting to fuzz out and looking anywhere but at Mama Bear, and I realize that I’m doing it again- I’m sitting in the same room as her, talking to her, but I’ve removed myself from connecting with her. She could just as well be a video recording, because I’ve isolated myself, and I feel all alone, even though she didn’t go anywhere. Over these last few months, when I catch what I am doing and I am able to resist it, I then try to breathe to ground myself and make myself look into her eyes and take in how she is looking at me. I open myself to the fact that here is a person who cares about me and is sitting there with me, having her own responses to what I say and do. She is real. I am real. What I am saying and experiencing is real. I have an impact on her. It is safe for me to allow her to have an impact on me. She wants for me to heal and would do everything that she could to avoid knowingly harming the fragile, hurt parts of me.

What a concept. Actually, what a constellation of concepts. And what a sense of hope.

I wish that I could say that this fixes all of my difficulties with allowing others in, but it was one of my deeply ingrained ways of being and it will take my having many, many “aha” moments in order to finally begin to come from a place where I fully believe that it is safe to be in relationship. But those changes are starting and more and more of me sees that they can happen. Even the parts of me that were hurt the worst can learn how to dare to take the chance to love and be loved again. I can’t say that all that I need is love, but all of me very much needs love.

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11 Responses

Hi…I can really relate to this. I think we all deserve to be loved. Everyone, every abuse survivor deserves to be loved unconditionally. I hope you will continue to find the love nowadays that you yearn for in all of your relationships with the people who are important to you in your life. XXX

“Many times when I am talking about something difficult, I find myself starting to fuzz out and looking anywhere but at Mama Bear, and I realize that I’m doing it again- I’m sitting in the same room as her, talking to her, but I’ve removed myself from connecting with her. She could just as well be a video recording, because I’ve isolated myself, and I feel all alone, even though she didn’t go anywhere.”
Yes yes yes, I do this. But at least I usually recognize it and tell her what I’m doing. Like last week: “I’m suddenly reading all the titles of your books on the shelves.” She said, “Yes, that is what children do, as well, they distract themselves, detach from what is happening, to cope.” Anything to get out of there….

I can relate at this point I’m unable to even make a friend, I’ve been too hurt in the recent past. I do have my Hubby but I’m unable to feel the love that he has for me. I so wish that I could. That’s amazing work that you’re doing. xo

I have slowly been experiencing a deepening in my friendships over the last few years. It is such a relief to allow myself to actually be myself with other people. I have confidence that you will get there too…

As ever, I can really relate to this, from your feelings around this now to your relationship with your mother. That push and pull – oh yes! I think you’re probably a little further on in your process of accepting your need for this but I nevertheless somehow understand exactly where you are. Much love to you as ever xx

Thank you, Mariann. It’s an interesting relationship with my mother. I am grateful to her for what she was able to give me, I love her, and I believe that she loves me, but I’m also furious with her and I feel terribly betrayed. I’m afraid to talk with her about the abuse and the way that it has affected me, because I’m sure that if she feels a need to pick sides, she will pick my dad, not because she doesn’t love me, but out of what seems to be self preservation to her. I’ve said to Mama Bear that it feels like a tragedy, which seems melodramatic to say, but really, it is.

This post has hit a really big point I am struggling with. I struggle with the feelings of loneliness often but hadn’t fully grasped that it is I that creates these feelings due to pulling back in relationships, especially with my therapist. It is so hard to be fully present in those moments of shame and fear, when we need that connection the most.

I know that for me, I experience several different reactions in regards to the closeness, but often the parts that are afraid of being close end up winning out. It’s frustrating to me, though, because I’ve realized that I have to have the sense of relationship solidly there with Mama Bear before I can really deal with what happened with my dad. I become overwhelmed and ashamed and I retreat, because that is what I learned to do and what feels safest, but actually, it’s the opposite of what I need. When I can allow myself to feel Mama Bear there, I don’t feel all alone with what happened, and that in itself is hugely healing.